Moose Droppings

Jennifer Sieredzki, Clayton
Kindergarten, Age 6
Riverwood Elementary School
Little metalmark butterfly

The Kids Wildlife Art Competition is a story we’ve been following out here and now the art work is posted. After looking at the winning entries along with the honorable mentions I’m glad I wasn’t one of the judges. The art work is great and there is some very talented young people in this state. I hope you check the art work and congratulations to all the winners.

Story by Dan McLaughlin AKA Moose

Thanks for the comments on my earlier story and here is some updated information. First of all the contest is over but I found the original rules and this contest was only open to children from North Carolina.
The winners have been announced and their art work will be viewable next month.

The winners, age, hometown and art subject are:

* Jennifer Sieredzki, 6, Clayton, Little metalmark butterfly
* Alexandra Barsony, 7, Winston-Salem, Red wolves at Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge
* Colby Whaley, 7, Smithfield, Northern water snake
* Lila Winter, 9, Raleigh, Blue jay
* Madisyn DeCant, 9, Shawboro, Barn owls
* Lauren Puckett, 9, Charlotte, Raccoon in snow
* Christopher Williams, 10, Durham, Great horned owl
* Asherel Kaseorg, 10, Charlotte, Eastern gray squirrel
* Devin Whitlark, 11, Greenville, Mother bird and two chicks
* Logan Beyer, 13, New Bern, Sea turtles
* Tucker Besosa, 13, Asheville, Black bear family
* Kerchuan Soong, 15, Charlotte, Red fox

As soon as the art work is posted I’ll link to it.

This year was the 30th anniversary of the Hunter Education Tournament put on by the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission for middle and high school teams from across the state. A very successful program teaching youth outdoor skills like safe gun handling, how to shoot a shotgun, muzzleloading, archery, and orienteering. This is a voluntary program with over 200 teams from across the state competing to see who the best is and to have the opportunity to represent North Carolina in national competition.
East Wake High School has participated for the past 22 years in this program so after months of training it came as a shock to the students involved to have the school pull the rug out from under them at the last possible minute. Less then 24hrs before the Competition School principal Sebastian Shipp and District Superintendent Danny Barnes canceled East Wake’s participation in the event. According to the N&O the reason was “Ammo and students don’t mix”. What a ridiculous statement, hunting and outdoor skills are part of the rural community and these school officials are certainly out of touch with the heritage and culture of the community they serve.
This is a long standing program staffed by Certified Hunter Safety Instructors with an impeccable safety record. I’m sure more students get hurt participating in football & baseball then those that participate in this activity.

The Camo Coalition has sent out an alert on this issue and you can easily click here and go to their page that will email the members of the Wake County School Board. I urge you to take a moment and send an email. We need to let them know that activities like these are important.

This week on my radio show I’m featuring part one of two part series featuring Allen Bliven and his pro staff. I recorded this at the Dixie Deer Classic so if you missed his presentation this is a great opportunity to hear how he got into call making and to hear his presentation on duck calls. You’ll also get the opportunity to hear a young lady, Candace who just won the NC Jr. Goose Calling Competition. Join us at 1pm on Friday or check the show achieves by the end of the weekend for the March 14th Show.

Packing Up & Heading Home

After many miles on my feet, a lot of handshakes, and a lot of stories the 28th Annual Dixie Deer Classic has drawn to an end. I’ll tell ya up front that it will take me a few weeks to get all the great tidbits and information I gathered from this years show. So for my initial post about the weekend I’ll give you some of the highlights but you’re going to have to stay tuned for all the great stuff I got.

Old Friends

The great part of the show is the friendships you can develop over the years I’ll highlight a few;

Away Outdoors

Fred & his son Greg are some of my favorite outdoor personalities and they have a great TV show. They also have some great products including great calls. This year’s new product is the turkey skinz but they are already sold out of them but you might find them still at Gander Mountain or Cabela’s. Greg was at another show but I’m hopeful that one of these years that the powers to be at the Dixie Deer Classic will invite Greg to speak.

Conman’s Guide Service

I’ve hunted a number of times with Mike and Connie and they have a top notch operation. They run a guide service on Lake Phelps in Washington County where they guide for bear, turkey, deer, swan, small game, and they have some unbelievable fishing on Lake Phelps.

Rac Plaques

I’ve known the Dorsett’s for a while but they have just started this business Rac Plaques which are plaques for putting your European mounts on. These guys have a quality product and it showed with this first show and how busy they stayed throughout the show.

New Friends

Allen Bliven Calls

I met Allen for the first time this weekend and what a great guy. He makes some sweet waterfowl calls and has some impressive young folks calling for him. He knows his stuff and he even took some time to help O’le Moose here try to learn to blow a duck call. I got like 6 months or so to practice before waterfowl opens back up and boy do I need some practice. In the near future I’ll bring you the story and hopefully some of the sounds from these champion callers.

Now a bit of a teaser one of these guys pulled a Bobby Knight on me and hit me with a chair during their lecture. You’ll have to tune in latter this week to hear that story.

I met so many friends and had a great time. There was some great deer on display and it looks like many of us had a great season. I didn’t buy much of anything just a few odds and ends, renewed my NRA and my subscription to NC Sportsman. I’d be curious to hear if any of my readers found any good deals or picked up some new equipment.

Overall it was a great show and I can hardly wait for next year.

This weekend I traveled across the state to participate in a Quail Hunt to raise money for Relay For Life. The hunt was put on by my good friend and fellow bloger Billy over at Blind Ambitions. The hunt was held at Quail Hollow hunting preserve in Caser NC with another one of my friends Chip Camp.

There was a bit of a chill in the air when everyone arrived shortly after day break but by mid morning it was very comfortable. I don’t know what the final number of participants was but it seemed to be 20 or more showed up for the good cause. There were many youngsters there some for their first ever hunting experience as well as some adults who had not hunted in a number of years. An outing like this is perfect to introduce someone to hunting as well as to refresh the old memories of past hunts for others. Most opted to practice their shooting skills on the skeet range prior to hunting the real birds.

Quail hunting in the south is in serious decline and a covey of wild quail is almost impossible to find. Hunting preserves like Quail Hollow that release quail are about the only place many can go to hunt quail and to work their dogs. Efforts across the south continue to restore the quail that has declined mainly do to loss of habitat including farming practices that use to favor the quail. A rise in the predator population has also had an impact. Conservation efforts by the NC Wildlife Resources Commission as well as groups like Quail Unlimited continue to try to reverse the declining trend.

It was exciting to see the dogs go on point and to see the retrievers work to bring the birds back.

A great day was had by all. Hats off to Billy for putting this hunt on to help raise funds to find a cure for cancer as well as give us all an opportunity to hunt some quail. I don’t think there is anyone who’s live has not been touched some how by this horrific disease.

This past spring a story that certainly made its rounds, on both traditional news outlets as well as many blogs, involving the killing of a huge hog in Alabama by an 11 year old boy with a handgun. This story caused a big stir and fueled the canned hunting debate. ESPN is now running a story from a media ethics think tank called Stinky Journalism that reports that this “hunt” is or will be the subject of a grand jury investigation.

The report on Stinky Jornalism seems to have some damming evidence that suggests that the adults involved in this situation certainly did not have this young man’s best interest in mind in this endeavor. If this report is accurate should this young man be held responsible for his actions? Good question I’m not sure there is enough information for me to really render an opinion either way.

The family has there version of the story as well.

Photo Charlotte Observer

A weekend squirrel hunting trip in Connelly Springs turned tragic when a loaded 410 shotgun fell off a moving golf cart and discharged striking William Reynolds age 13 of Hickory NC. He succumbed to his injuries latter at Grace Hospital in Morganton after rescue personnel transported him from the scene. The accident is under investigation by North Carolina Wildlife Commission but investigators do not expect charges to be filed in this case. None of the news stories I’ve read have said whether or not William had taken a hunter safety class but there was adult supervision present on the hunt.

“He went out with a friend of mine, and they were going to celebrate his birthday a week late and do some hunting,” said his mother, Lucy Huffman Reynolds.
“What I’ve been told is that he (William) was driving a golf cart when it happened. It hit a bump, and he let go of his gun to grab the wheel with both hands. … The gun slipped backward. It hit the back of the cart and went off.
“He fought to the bitter end for his life,” she said.

Charlotte Observer

This is such a tragic ending that didn’t have to happen. Firearms should always be unloaded prior to being put into a vehicle. I hope that people learn from this accident and we don’t have any other families that have to go through this nightmare.

Porter Wagoner more famously known for his music is also a good friend of the National Wild Turkey Federation lending support to many of their projects including lots of the Jake (Youth) programs.

NWTF chapters across North America hold Hundreds of Porter Wagoner/JAKES Field Day events each year to introduce young people to the joy of the outdoors. Let your child experience the outdoors through supervised, hands-on activities at an event near you.

Porter Wagoner/JAKES Field Day

Mr. Wagoner who is 80 years old was admitted to the hospital earlier this month with lung cancer has now gone under the care of Hospice. Our thoughts and prayers are with him at this difficult time.

I was reading a story out of Washington State about landowners shutting off their land to hunters and fishermen because of the shenanigans of a few.

For years, he put up with the thousands of dollars of vandalism, the relentless garbage-dumping, the all-hours gunfire and poaching, not to mention the dangers created by irresponsible hunters who didn’t seem to care that the Williamson family’s homes might be in the line of fire.
Once, Williamson’s son David — who has a home on the property — heard shots just up the road during a
non-hunting season and went up to investigate and found himself almost in the line of fire of several apparently inebriated individuals who had decided to kill a bighorn sheep.

Yakima Herald

First off calling individuals that exhibit behaviors like this “hunters” I think is wrong but like it or not many in the non hunting community have this view of us. This behavior seems to happens everywhere and if you don’t believe me just take some rides in rural parts of this country and see how many road signs are shot up.

I’ve talked about illegal dumping in the past and although it’s not necessarily associated with hunting like the shooting of road signs is it does often impact relationships with landowners and access to land.

Drinking and guns just like drinking and driving doesn’t mix. The clubs I’m in have a rule that says as soon as you start drinking your done handling a gun for the day. We really don’t have an issue with this but it’s good to know that as a group of hunters we take this issue very seriously and we want to keep all of us safe.

We as hunters need to use our influence over others to make sure things like this don’t happen. We need to work with landowners and law enforcement to keep everyone safe and to protect private property. Poaching of game I would hope is something we would never view as acceptable behavior no matter what the rationalization is for this crime.
Lastly we need to be a mentor to the young hunters coming up in our ranks. It is not enough to just take a kid hunting or fishing once in a while but we must teach by example what it means to be a sportsman. It is an awesome responsibility but as you can see the opportunities to access prime habitat to enjoy are sport could be one thoughtless act away from being lost. We all need to be good sportsman to ensure our heritage can continue.

Not often that a major magazine that is not a hunting or fishing magazine takes a balanced look at the role sportsmen play in conservation.

The great irony is that many species might not survive at all were it not for hunters trying to kill them. All the wings provided to Norman Saake and his colleagues throughout the country come from hunters, who fold them into prepaid envelopes, record the date and place of harvest, and mail them in. It is but one example of how the nation’s 12.5 million hunters have become essential partners in wildlife management. They have paid more than 700 million dollars for duck stamps, which have added 5.2 million acres to the National Wildlife Refuge System since 1934, when the first stamps were issued. They pay millions of dollars for licenses, tags, and permits each year, which helps finance state game agencies. They contribute more than 250 million dollars annually in excise taxes on guns, ammunition, and other equipment, which largely pays for new public game lands. Hunters in the private sector also play a growing role in conserving wildlife.

The entire article is a worthwhile read so check it out. The numbers in our ranks is certainly on the decline and we need to take action to reverse this trend. Introduce somebody to our great sport and preserve our heritage.

I was reading Ed Hardin’s column in today’s Greensboro Record and his reflections on the decline of hunters despite the important role they play in conservation. As he points out at one time the opening of squirrel season in many parts of the country was a much bigger day then it is in our current society.

Squirrel hunting was how many people got their start in hunting back not all that long ago but the deer & turkey populations were virtually non existent in most parts. With strong deer populations today and squirrel season opening during deer season not many folks get out and hunt squirrels. I think there are some good reasons to start a kid on small game rather then big game;
• Teaching Gun Safety with smaller caliber or birdshot rather then higher caliber or slugs/ buckshot
• Small game is great to practice and learn woodsmanship skills where as big game a mess up can scare everything for a while.
• Small game is more tolerant of human voice and scent.
• Hunts can easily accommodate a short period of time.

One unusual lines in Ed’s column that has me scratching my head is this one;

Even the Humane Society, which points to the increasing numbers of birdwatchers and wildlife photographers as evidence of shifting trends, is on record supporting hunters under certain circumstances.

Huh? News to me I was unaware that the Humane Society supported any form of hunting. If any of my readers are aware of a situation where the Humane Society supported a hunting opportunity please share with me.

Ed makes some great points in his article so check it out and by all means if you get the opportunity to take a kid hunting or fishing please do.